Letter: Graffiti can't be passed off as true art

Thursday

Oct 27, 2011 at 12:01 AM

Back around 1958, an acquaintance of mine and his brother were walking through the Boston Public Garden at the time of an outdoor art exhibit. One of them saw two cement blocks left leaning together by workmen. He then went into mock ecstasy looking for the artist's name, praising the composition, ingenuity, boldness and so many other artistic attributes.

In a short time, a small crowd had gathered to admire this unnamed masterpiece. It was then that they walked away, leaving the critics to admire the "art." It seems that anything that has been modified by a human hand, with proper hype, can be called art.

Dean Adrian Tio ("The tagger's code," Oct. 23) speaks of graffiti as a way of saying "we're here too." This is the same meaning as night cries of animals, or the marking of territory by hopeful lower rank male animals leaving behind their urine or feces. It is amusing that graffiti artist "R.T.," in the same article, comments that "now there's just crap everywhere."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in praising the Rhodora, noted "that if eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being." I cannot see any comparison to the beauty of a Rhodora flower in even the best of graffiti art.

Rev. Martin Buote

Former pastor of St. Anne parish

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